page_title: David Teniers the Younger
section_title: Theatrum pictorium
hierarchical_section_title: David Teniers the Younger / Work / Theatrum pictorium
context_page_description: David Teniers the Younger or David Teniers II was a Flemish Baroque painter, printmaker, draughtsman, miniaturist painter, staffage painter, copyist and art curator. He was an extremely versatile artist known for his prolific output. He was an innovator in a wide range of genres such as history painting, genre painting, landscape painting, portrait and still life. He is now best remembered as the leading Flemish genre painter of his day. Teniers is particularly known for developing the peasant genre, the tavern scene, pictures of collections and scenes with alchemists and physicians.
  He was court painter and the curator of the collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, the art loving Governor General of the Habsburg Netherlands. He created a printed catalogue of the collections of the Archduke. He was the founder of the Antwerp Academy, where young artists were trained to draw and sculpt in the hope of reviving Flemish art after its decline following the death of the leading Flemish artists Rubens and Anthony van Dyck in the early 1640s. He influenced the next generation of Northern genre painters as well as French Rococo painters such as Antoine Watteau.
context_section_description: During his tenure as keeper of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm's collection, Teniers undertook the preparation and publication of the first ever illustrated catalog of old master paintings. His brother Abraham Teniers was involved in organizing the publication of the work. The first official publication of the work in bound book format was published by Hendrick Aertssens in Brussels in 1660 (although the title page states the date as 1658). The title page of the book refers to it as 'Hoc Amphiteatrum Picturarum' ('This amphitheatre of pictures'). The publication is now often referred to as Theatrum pictorium ('Theatre of Paintings'). The cover of the Theatrum pictorium contained a bust portrait of the Archduke with a dedication to the Archduke as well as introductions in Latin, French, Spanish and Dutch.  The title page clarifies that Teniers funded the publication project out of his own pocket. The Theatrum pictorium was published in four languages (Latin, French, Dutch, and Spanish) and further editions appeared in 1673 and 1688 and in the 18th century.  The last edition was published in 1755.
  The publication comprised 246 engravings of important Italian paintings in the art collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm.  While the project was initially planned to include the entire collection of the Archduke, the Archduke returned to Vienna before the project was completed.  As a result, ultimately only a series of 246 plates was produced, of which 243 depicted about half of the Italian paintings then owned by the Archduke).
  In the preparation of this project, Teniers first painted reduced modelli after the original works on panels of roughly 17 by 25 in dimensions.  These were then engraved on the same scale by a pool of 12 engravers. Teniers used full colour in the modelli, rather than grisaille.  This could mean that he intended these reproductions to function as independent records of some of these Italian paintings in the Archduke's collection.  From the many modelli, which have been preserved, it is obvious that Teniers's copies constitute a true record of the originals even while he left out details and painted them in his typical fluid and transparent manner. The engraving of the catalog by engravers who worked after the modelli, not the originals, was started by 1656. In the 17th century there existed no efficient method for inverting images.  As a result, most of the prints in the catalog are reverse images of the originals. Each print gives the name of the author of the original work on the left hand side (indicated by the letter 'p' for 'pinxit', Latin for 'painted by') and the engraver of the print on the right hand side (indicated by the letter 's' for 'sculpsit', Latin for 'engraved by').  Some editions also indicated the original dimensions of the paintings.
  Teniers's modelli and the Theatrum pictorium serve as a record for some important paintings the whereabouts of which are currently unknown. For instance, the modelli in the Metropolitan Museum of Art of the Old Age in Search of Youth attributed by Teniers to Correggio and the Adam and Eve after Padovanino are the most important records of these lost paintings.
  The Theatrum Pictorium had an important impact on the manner in which collections were organised, appreciated and published and continued to be used as a reference book during the 18th century.
caption: View into the picture gallery of the Archduke Leopold in Brussels, by Nikolaus van Hoy from Theatrum Pictorium, 1656–1660
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